Jill Loach, an avid theatre-goer, recalls a presentation of a new play by “up and coming” playwright at the time, Harold Pinter, on 5th May 1958:“His first full length play, The Birthday Party came to the Grand on its pre-London tour in Spring 1958, mystified us and reputedly played on some nights to audiences in single figures – some of whom left in the interval! Certainly on the night we saw it, the theatre was virtually empty Afterwards we went round as usual to the stage door clutching autograph books. “Did you enjoy it?” said John Slater. “Yes,” we answered honestly. “Did you understand it?” was the next question and we had to admit we hadn’t got a clue!”… more

Putting on a different play each week during the repertory season was demanding for backstage staff as well as actors. David Perry worked as a scenic designer and painter for repertory plays in the 1960s and was haunted by the theatre’s ‘ghosts.’… more

Esmé England was 100 years old when she was interviewed, but she still had vivid memories of working as a seamstress at the Grand. During a performance of Carmen she saved the show, when the singer playing Don Jose almost destroyed the heroine’s costume!"Carmen was a beautiful woman…. she had a most magnificent lace costume. As she walked, Don Jose … stood on her costume and she kept walking. All this lace came undone. I quickly got behind her where no-one could see me and put it together and at the end of the performance, I had to take it home and get it all back together again. I can see him now that lace and him standing in the middle of it. That was a catastrophe."The other photographs and articles show Esme's work on costumes for the 1972 pantomime, Cinderella.… more

Ian Payne was taken to pantomimes at the Grand as a child and brought up by his parents to respect the theatre’s history, so he was very sad when the theatre closed for over two years in the early 1980's:"If I was in town and I was going somewhere, to the bus station in particular, you’d walk past the Grand, it was boarded up - one of the oldest theatres in the country, one of the most respected theatres in the country. A lot of the greatest stars we’d ever produced have trod the boards here and seeing this was just so upsetting. It probably hurt me more because I love theatre and the history of theatre. We were going into recession, jobs were being lost, it was all part and parcel of the whole atmosphere of the country, the doom and gloom climate of the country and as you don’t know when we’re going to come out of this depression, it was the same then. When the Grand Theatre closed, it suddenly dawned on me, it brought home how serious the economic climate was, when one of the most popular theatres in the land had closed and it was just like the heart and soul had been taken out of the town."… more

n 1990, Julia Prior became a member of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Development Trust committee and they asked her to organise a fund-raising night at the theatre. She was taken aback to discover that they meant she should produce a whole show at the Grand, but she duly went to all three of the local amateur operatic societies to ask them to perform part of their show on one night and she also invited her daughter’s show band from Abraham Darby School. After Julia had been taken backstage by her god-father when she was a child and then been a theatre landlady and a keen theatre-goer, at last she was actually working at the theatre:"Unfortunately it was only for one night, on a Sunday night, this was the sad thing – all the hard work that was put into this work and it was only for one performance. I had to open the box office up at home to start with and start selling tickets and then a couple of weeks before the production, the Grand Theatre box office took over…and I did this in 1990, I did it again in 1991 and 1992. We had the full backing of the lighting people and it was such a joy, because I was meeting a lot of people that I’d met previously and was actually working with them and it was the most happy time possible and very successful."… more

Lindsey Grant’s grandmother danced in professional pantomimes at the Grand in the 1950s; her mother is a dance teacher, and Lindsey herself has already performed in many musicals at the Grand."It’s just a total buzz when you go on the stage. At the moment I’m with MusCom, which is Wolverhampton Musical Comedy Company and we’re rehearsing for West Side Story. I’m playing one of the Jet girls in it, so I get to do the numbers like America and I Feel Pretty, which are the main numbers in the show. When I first did The King and I with South Staffs Musical Company in I think it was 2004, I played one of the children – there was about sixty of us – and it was really fun, and this time when I do it, I’m playing one of the lead dancers, so it’s nice to have progressed from child actor to doing some dancing on my own."… more

David Buckle attended the Grand as a child during the Second World War, when the buses that brought him to the theatre had their windows blacked out. Here, he recalls his memories of Marlene Dietrich's 1966 appearance at the Grand.… more

Kathie Lamsdale attended dancing classes in Wolverhampton throughout her childhood and then auditioned for Madame Leminski in Edgbaston, who provided panto dancers for the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham and the Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton. She danced in several pantomimes at the Grand in the 1950s, which in those day s ran for eleven weeks.… more

During Kathie Lamsdale’s years in pantomime, she enjoyed meeting many of the stars of the day, including Teddy Johnson & Pearl Carr, Bill Maynard, Norman Vaughan, Malcolm Vaughan & Kenneth Earle, Lenny the Lion, Hilda Baker, Val Doonican, Arthur Haynes and Reg Varney. However, some of her warmest memories are of socialising with the other pantomime dancers and the stage crew.… more

Steve Clifton is Assistant Head at Coppice Performing Arts School and has produced fourteen of the school’s annual shows. In 2006 he brought the school’s production of Les Miserables to the Grand for one night only.… more

Starting as a performer at the Grand Theatre through the GET-IN! program, MJ Mytton Sanneh has had the opportunity to play the part of the young Michael Jackson in Thriller Live. Here he talks about how he started as a performer.… more

When Ann Eaton was a pupil at Wolverhampton High School during the Second World War, she and her sister received free tickets to attend the Grand’s weekly repertory season from a friend of her mother’s, Mrs. Knowles.… more

Richard Edmonds became arts reviewer and diary editor for the Birmingham Post in 1978 and has been coming to the Grand Theatre ever since. Here he remembers coming to the Grand when he was seven years old.… more